


Where There's Smoke ...

by IneffableAlien



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Anxious Crowley (Good Omens), Author Projecting onto Crowley (Good Omens), Blood Kink, Catharsis, Dominance, Enthusiastic Consent, Established Relationship, Fetish, Fire, Fire Bottom Aziraphale, Fire Top Crowley, Gentle Dom Aziraphale (Good Omens), Heavy BDSM, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), M/M, Masochist Aziraphale, Massage, Mild Blood, Needles, Non-Sexual Bondage, Non-Sexual Kink, Non-Sexual Submission, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Porn with Feelings, Post-Canon, Praise Kink, Reluctant Sadist, Risk Aware Consensual Kink, Rope Bondage, Rope Bottom Crowley, Rope Top Anathema, Sadist Crowley, Safewords, Service Top Aziraphale (Good Omens), Service Top Crowley (Good Omens), Shibari, Smoking, Sub Crowley (Good Omens), smoking fetish
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-06
Updated: 2020-04-09
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:41:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21691228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IneffableAlien/pseuds/IneffableAlien
Summary: A series of unconnected kink one-shot chapters, with a special focus on rarer kink.pt. I-smoking fetish.pt. II-shibari/kinbaku.pt. III-fireplay.pt. IV-needleplay.More to come.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), Crowley & Anathema Device
Comments: 93
Kudos: 220
Collections: ineffably kinky





	1. smoking fetish.

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally intended as a one-shot, until people started subscribing to it. Enjoy :)
> 
> It is and shall remain ongoing.

**pt. I - Aziraphale discovers that Crowley is weak for an unusual fetish.**

Aziraphale had been around since the first humans started doing it. Of course he’d tried it, many times.

He was a glutton for pleasure, after all. It had been a while, but he supposed it was like riding a velocipede, insofar as one never forgets how. And Aziraphale had always had a knack for putting his mouth to good use.

We’re talking about smoking, obviously.

It suited his interests: a fine cigar with the appropriate brandy pairing; the honey flavor notes and serene aesthetic of sharing a hookah; savoring a cigarette after a long night of … dancing.

He fell off the habit after Heaven went nonsmoking centuries ago. He’d always preferred eating anyway. But then suddenly he and Crowley were on their own side, and although it was slow work climbing out from under the wreckage of celestial terrorism, Aziraphale grew out of living his life according to the policies of his former workplace.

Naturally, testing out these new waters began with Crowley, as so many wonderful things always had. They were free, to love and be loved, and they hungered to try every different possible expression of that. It got interesting, to say the least. So many psychological factors go into why one human develops a particular fetish over the course of their lifetime, while perhaps another one does not. Crowley and Aziraphale had 6,000 years’ worth of experiences shaping the clay of their minds and desires. For whatever reason, they immediately gravitated toward experimenting with power dynamics. It was enthralling, finding out what made the other one tick, learning that the intellectual, even cerebral, games that they played were frequently more sexually fulfilling than physical consummation.

They were the same, both so versatile, this angelic demon and demonic angel; they could switch roles as needed, and they did just that whenever one wanted because they were both loath to ever tell the other one no.

But Aziraphale’s favorite was always to be in charge. Aziraphale’s favorite was Crowley on his knees, begging to please, and that was what Crowley liked best, too, and he was so good at pleasing. Crowley was truly remarkable for how swiftly he could slip into subspace. Aziraphale thought it was divine, to watch Crowley’s eyes go glassy as all his anxiety left his body and he surrendered to the singular purpose of serving, prompted by things so simple as a voice or a look.

Crowley was such a good boy.

The point is (in case you’ve forgotten why we’re here)—Aziraphale had already been fucking Crowley for a very long time before it ever crossed his mind that, hey, smoking was something he was free to do now, too, if he wanted.

They had just finished an excellent meal at the Ritz, and dessert was en route, when Aziraphale was hit with the flight of fancy to see if smoking was as nice as he remembered. He reached in his pocket, and produced a Victorian cigarette case he had decided would be in there.

Crowley’s breath hitched.

“It’s all right, my dear,” said Aziraphale, who was well aware that times had changed drastically in regard to the general opinion on public smoking. “I’ve already handled it so that no one shall even notice, much less be harmed by it.” When Crowley stared but said nothing, Aziraphale became flustered, thinking he realized his folly. “Oh, my,” he said, “I should have asked you if it would irritate _you,_ and clearly it does. Do forgive my rudeness.”

Crowley cleared his throat. “It’s fine if you want to,” he said, his mouth a tight line.

But Aziraphale had already moved on and started talking about something completely unrelated.

Some time passed, and Aziraphale forgot all about that day. The next time he felt the whim to light up, it was late at night, and they were in the bookshop, drinking wine. Often nowadays they would cuddle up on the couch together, but many nights still ended like this, in playful banter with Crowley on the couch and Aziraphale seated at the desk.

While they laughed over some shared memory, Aziraphale placed a cigarette between his lips. He made it as far as sparking a Zippo, gold with engraved wings, and he nearly dropped it when he heard how Crowley gasped. Aziraphale looked up in surprise. Crowley’s pupils were blown wide, and was Aziraphale imagining this in the low light of the shop, or were Crowley’s irises expanding to fill his eyes serpentine gold from corner to corner? “Whatever was I thinking,” Aziraphale said guiltily, stuffing the cigarette back in the case. “Of course it bothers you to see a flame lit in here—”

“There’s candles,” Crowley rushed to choke out, so low that Aziraphale almost didn’t hear.

Aziraphale paused. “Yes,” he said slowly, “I suppose there are.”

A hypothesis was unfolding in Aziraphale’s brain, and he was instantly eager to test it out.

“Do they bother you?” he asked coolly. “The candles, I mean. Surely you would tell me if they did, wouldn’t you?”

Crowley swallowed a thick lump in his throat, then nodded his head subtly. “I mean, yes, that I would tell you. No, they don’t bother me.”

Aziraphale peered into Crowley’s eyes, then slid a cigarette out of the case very deliberately. “Would _this_ … bother you?”

Crowley stared back into Aziraphale’s eyes. “Nuh-uh,” he managed. Aziraphale rested the cigarette on his bottom lip and flicked the lighter open. Crowley’s mouth parted at the same time, as though mirroring its action. “Looks good,” he croaked.

“Mm?” Aziraphale looked up, torturing Crowley when he failed to light the end of the cigarette. “What’s that, dear?”

“You look good,” said Crowley, “doing that.”

Aziraphale finally lit up then and took a long drag, and Crowley sighed. _He’s so beautiful like this,_ thought Aziraphale. Aziraphale turned his head to the side and exhaled a fine curling mist. He dropped his tone, picking up that hidden sword edge that flashed in his voice whenever he saw Crowley coming undone like this. “Tell me what you like about it,” said Aziraphale.

Crowley’s cheeks burned red. Aziraphale loved to do this, loved to reach inside his raw parts and make him consider his own thoughts and feelings, put them into words. It was mortifying, he hated it, and he loved it. “I don’t know,” he mumbled.

**What makes something “sex”?** What makes the entire atmosphere of a room change, without so much as touching someone? Without even talking about touching?

Aziraphale scraped an ornate Art Deco standing ashtray in front of him from beside the desk, and Crowley thought there was no way that had been there before. Aziraphale had barely smoked down even a centimeter, but he moved to put it out now at Crowley’s lack of reply. He stopped when Crowley whimpered, loudly and unashamed. Then he raised the cigarette back to his lips, and Crowley’s eyes tracked the cherry as it trailed through the dimness of the shop. “Then tell me what you like about it,” Aziraphale said, spelling it out slower this time.

“I, I,” said Crowley. “The smell, for one thing, I guess?”

“Describe it for me,” said Aziraphale.

“I,” said Crowley, “you know I’m not good at this.” He paused. “Well, tobacco … obviously. And tobacco smells like … wet earth. Suede.” Aziraphale rewarded him by taking a deep drag, blowing it out to one side, and that seemed to embolden Crowley. “Whiskey. Wood. Sometimes, I think it depends on the brand, sometimes cinnamon. Or orange peels.”

Aziraphale frowned. “Really? Orange peels?”

Crowley looked about ready to cry. “Was that wrong?”

“No,” Aziraphale reassured him quickly, “there’s no wrong answer, my dear. I just didn’t expect you to say that.” He gave Crowley an encouraging smile. “You are doing so well, Crowley. You’re trying so hard to do what I asked, and I think you are incredible for doing that.”

Crowley whined, deep in his throat. He was leaning so far forward that his body barely touched the couch anymore.

“Would you like to come down off the couch, is that it?” Aziraphale asked. “Are you waiting for me to tell you to get down on your knees?” Crowley nodded desperately, and Aziraphale chuckled. “How precious you are like this,” said Aziraphale. “Please, my darling, get on your knees for me.” Crowley landed hard on the wooden floor. “Now, tell me something else that you like about it. Help me to understand, why seeing me smoke a cigarette would do this to you.” Aziraphale took another drag, then exhaled so painfully long that Crowley would have thought he was miracling it, but he felt no such magic in the room.

(Another sort of magic, yes. Of a very human variety.)

Crowley gnawed at his lower lip, trying to stop it from quivering and simultaneously think of a good answer. He wanted to be good. “Maybe,” he tried, “how most places don’t let you do it anymore. Taboo factor. Or, maybe it reminds me of a kind of era that I like—martini lunches and all that.”

“What lovely answers,” said Aziraphale tenderly. “It embarrasses you to share like this, but I told you to do something so here you are, and doing a great job at it.” Crowley beamed dazedly at that. “Come closer, dear,” said Aziraphale, letting his knees fall open so Crowley could crawl into nestling against his thighs. Aziraphale took a puff, a smaller one this time, then politely blew it away from Crowley’s face.

“Having-it-blown-_at_-me,” Crowley said in a rush of breath. “That’s what I always wanted, and that’s the embarrassing part, I’m sorry, I know it’s so weird, I—”

“There will be none of that,” said Aziraphale, firm but loving. Crowley looked wounded, until Aziraphale petted his cheek and he melted into his open palm. “There will be no apologizing for being honest with me about what you like.” Crowley nodded weakly, his lips not quite kissing Aziraphale’s hand but brushing over it back and forth. “What a spectacular creature you are,” Aziraphale whispered. “Are you mine?” he asked. “Would you like to hear me say that? Or is that too possessive? No wrong answer, my love. Whatever you like.”

Crowley let a little moan escape his mouth at being so thoroughly complimented, at being called his love. Aziraphale knew Crowley must be painfully hard by this point. “W’like that,” he murmured. “W’_love_ that,” he corrected himself.

“You are so perfect,” Aziraphale spoke softly against the crown of Crowley’s head. “You are so good and you please me so much.” Aziraphale sucked long and hard on the remains of his cigarette, then cupped Crowley’s chin in his hand so he was gazing deeply into his eyes. “You are mine,” he breathed, a gentle grey cloud kissing Crowley’s face and settling in his hair. “All mine, and I love you exactly as you are.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> xx [siliconealien](http://siliconealien.tumblr.com)


	2. shibari suspension.

**pt. II - Anathema helps Crowley into an inverted takate kote suspension (nonsexual).**

“I have one major rule to add, that I wouldn’t normally have to say to people I tie,” said Anathema, deadly serious.

“What’s that?” asked Crowley, who couldn’t for the life of him determine why his heart had been hammering against his ribcage. He was still free to walk around, but he was tied in a chest harness with his arms bound behind his back, a _takate kote_ (TK), and the back of his head throbbed with the promise of looming anxiety every time he remembered that his arms were of no use to him like this.

Crowley was about to embark on his first suspension, inverted, no less.

Anathema, for what it was worth, had never suspended an immortal entity powerful enough to stop time before.

_“No. Miracling. Out of it,”_ said Anathema, while she ran her fingers under the rope on Crowley’s body and tugged until she seemed satisfied with the way the nylon laid against his skin. “I mean, yeah, if there’s an emergency, of course, but short of that …” Crowley rolled his eyes, but Anathema caught the nervousness reflected in them before he looked up and away. “I’m serious, Crowley,” she said. “You want to get something out of this, right?”

Crowley grinned wickedly, still trying to project an outward appearance of confidence. “I want to beat it,” he said, showing teeth that were too sharp.

Anathema liked Crowley, and she understood some things about him. He implied as though he wanted to go through the actions of a shibari suspension just to successfully check it off a list of experiences, but Anathema heard some deeper meaning in his words. She suspected that Crowley, whether he knew it or not, was confronting a pain that was connected to something else, something dark. “I’m not sure that’s the healthiest attitude to bring into this,” she chided.

“Well,” said Crowley cheekily, “it’s the attitude _I’m_ bringing into it.”

“You know what? That’s fair,” said Anathema. “You’re a big demon, it’s not my place to psychologize or shame the way you do kink.” She smirked fondly. “So you agree? No minor miracles? If you do this, you do it the way humans do. You trust the rope, you accept the sensations that come with it, and you surrender your powers for the time being.”

“Geez,” said Crowley. “I’m sure it won’t even be that big a deal.”

“And don’t forget,” Anathema rushed to remind him, “you can end it at any time. You don’t even have to remember to call red, the second you say stop, that’s it.”

“I will _not_ have to say stop,” Crowley grumbled.

Anathema grimaced. Crowley was ridiculous. “That’s a lot of toxic masculinity for a 6,000-year-old agender being,” she said. _“It’s perfectly all right to have to stop.”_ She knew that she wasn’t about to convince him right now. “And keep telling me when things hurt,” she said, “don’t just tough it out, because it’s actually really important for me to know where you’re feeling things.” She pulled on his chest harness. “This isn’t as risk-free as people might think.”

“You know you can’t actually kill me like this, right?”

Now it was Anathema’s turn to roll her eyes. “Right, right, because it’s ‘just your body,’” she said. “Whatever—your body doesn’t need nerve damage.”

“I’ll keep you posted on what I’m feeling,” Crowley assured her. “Now, are we gonna do this, or just keep talking about it?”

“Aziraphale,” Anathema called, “come kiss your husband goodbye before he has a complete nervous breakdown and slips into subspace for the next three hours.”

“I am _not_ going to have a nervous breakdown!” Crowley snapped. “So I’m going to swing upside down from a rope for a couple minutes. Humans do stuff like this all the time, how scary can it be?”

Aziraphale stepped in front of Anathema and put his hands on either side of Crowley’s face, and Crowley melted into the touch. Aziraphale kissed him lightly. “My dear, do you have any idea how breathtaking you are like this?” Crowley beamed, cheeks pink. “As you always are,” said Aziraphale, “but tied up like this … you are such a wondrous gift.”

Crowley, a lithe-bodied redhead wearing nothing but black boxer briefs and the red rope that crisscrossed all around his torso, was, indisputably, a sight to behold. He nuzzled Aziraphale’s neck and resisted the overwhelming urge to drop to his knees right then and there. Aziraphale stroked his hair.

Anyone who’d ever been a passenger in the Bentley would be unsurprised to learn that Crowley was figuring out since Armageddon’t that he was a bit of a thrill seeker. He didn’t consider himself brave, but he wanted to feel things. Sometimes that meant, consciously or not, that Crowley sought out feeling bad things, because he tortured himself as expertly as any human could when it came to dodging the sensation of standing still.

When all you’ve ever known is chaos, serenity can burn like hell.

Aziraphale had already been witnessing this play out for centuries, and after much reading, he had suggested that they try playing with kink. Not all of it was sexual, but it was all stupendously sensual. It was no substitute for therapy, for sure, but Aziraphale loved seeing Crowley excited to try new things, and he loved seeing Crowley feel good. He loved seeing Crowley _allow_ himself to feel good. He loved how long it had been since the last time Crowley had cycled through sleeping for weeks on end, only waking long enough to yell at God and then go back to bed.

(When Aziraphale had described that last part to Anathema, she had bit her lip and been careful not to say out loud what she’d been thinking, which was, essentially, _big mood.)_

Aziraphale stepped out of the radius of the rig and got out of Anathema’s way. “Thank you so much for doing this for us,” he said to her. “I can barely keep a rabbit alive when I attempt to do human magic.”

She opened her mouth, then decided not to bother trying to explain that bondage was not actually magic. “You’re welcome,” said Anathema, smiling, “any time.” She hesitated. “But, Aziraphale,” she said, “I need you to stand back for watching the scene, okay? You could actually do more harm than good, if you try to rush in or talk to him while he’s in the middle of it.”

Aziraphale nodded his assent. “I am placing all my trust in you, my dear,” he said. Anathema gave him a reassuring smile.

The instant Aziraphale moved back and Crowley no longer had that security blanket immediately in front of him, he started to feel something like low-level electricity charging beneath his muscles. He experimented with trying to pry his arms apart behind his back, and the color drained from his face when he realized that the tie was too strong to break by regular means. _**Don’t** miracle out of it,_ he thought to himself. _You can do this._

Anathema approached Crowley with more rope in her hand. “I’m about to put a hip harness on you. Is that okay? Is it all right to touch you again?”

The room was warm, but Crowley shivered. He nodded in silence. There was going to be more rope on him. He was going to be even more helpless. _Trust the rope,_ he remembered Anathema saying.

“Yeah? Do you trust me?” she asked, after he had said nothing out loud.

Crowley nodded again.

“Goth girlfriends?” Anathema asked.

That got a laugh out of him. “Goth girlfriends,” he agreed.

Anathema shot him a friendly smile, then reached around Crowley’s waist and between his thighs, securing his hips in a succession of diamond shapes. Anathema’s tying was not especially pretty; it was utilitarian.

But Crowley in rope was pretty regardless.

Crowley was aware of Aziraphale’s eyes on him, and he knew he approved, and Crowley smiled shyly, some submissive part of himself overtaking him already, and he cast his eyes on the floor.

Anathema tugged on the front of the finished harness, and Crowley yelped when she moved him wherever she wanted him to go. It no longer mattered in the slightest that he was bigger than her. The rope was more than just an equalizer, the way it sat on his body rendered him feeling helpless to anyone who caught hold of him by it. Crowley’s knowledge that he could technically still say fuck this and miracle himself free was slipping away from him like he was trying to anchor it to storm clouds, because the wisdom simply could not jive with the chemical rush coming on in his brain.

As Anathema became cognizant that Crowley was mentally meandering someplace else, she drew closer in his space so she could address him using softer tones. “I’d like to run my fingers under the rope here,” she said, “like I did with your chest, just to make sure nothing pinches. Do I have your permission to do that?”

Crowley nodded into her cheek. Anathema checked the rope on his lower half, and her touch was not invasive or sexual, but it emphasized to him how total his vulnerability was, and he unwittingly latched onto that feeling and shook from the intensity of it.

Two sides of Crowley’s mind were battling. On the one hand, he knew that he trusted Anathema, and that this was a game they were playing, with his consent, and that he had the ability to stop it at any given moment. On the other hand, the less rational parts of his brain were flashing messages in strobing red lights, and those messages read something to the effect of, _you have no control you’re not in control something could happen could happen to your angel and you’d be fucking tied up because you willingly let your guard down because **you-Are-An-Idiot.**_

Anathema was continuing to do things with the rope while Crowley spiraled inside of himself, and then he was feeling pressure on his thighs, and when he eventually gazed skyward at the rig above him and saw all the ropes through the giant carabiner hanging from a heavy ring, he couldn’t even recall having seen her pull them through it.

“Are you ready?” he heard her say.

Crowley nodded tremblingly. “I can do it, you know,” he said, and he almost didn’t recognize his own voice, because it came out of him so small. “I can get through it without a miracle.”

“I know you can, Crowley,” said Anathema.

And then, Anathema pulled on the ropes.

Crowley was swung up by his chest and hips, and he gasped when he realized that not only were his feet no longer touching the floor, but that he had no choice in the matter. His arms were useless behind him, and the most he might have been able to accomplish with his physical corporation was kicking air. Crowley had willingly appointed higher power to someone other than himself. He had surrendered to having faith in something, on purpose.

Crowley felt Anathema’s breath by his ear before he saw her there. “Would you like to try a blindfold?” she asked.

“No, no, no,” he said, feeling panic at the very thought of losing one of his senses now. He felt submissive, he was sinking into an unbidden desire to please, _I can do a good job, I can BE good, I swear, I’m not all bad, give me a chance,_ and so he choked, “I’m sorry, I can’t, I’m sorry …”

“Crowley, you have nothing to apologize for,” said Anathema quickly. “I was just offering. Okay? You’re doing great.”

Crowley whimpered. He was scared, and he couldn’t comprehend why, and he craved it and luxuriated in it at the same time that he despised himself for it.

“Do you want to come down?” Anathema asked.

He shook his head wildly.

“Do you want to stay up because you want to,” Anathema asked cautiously, “or because you feel like you have to prove something to someone?”

“Hafta prove something to _**me,”**_ Crowley growled.

Anathema wasn’t sure what to do with that information. So she chose, at least for the time being, to trust her rope bottom. Anathema hoisted Crowley up even higher and into a position of sitting up, and he whined at the strain on his legs. “Hurts,” he confessed shakily.

“I know,” soothed Anathema, who knew that pain there was “normal,” as opposed to being overtly alarming. “Nobody likes the thigh cuffs. But I’m going to help you through the next part so they don’t hurt anymore, _or_ I can bring you down right now and we can be done with it. Your choice, always.”

“Please,” he said, “I can do it. Please let me do it.”

“Okay,” said Anathema. She stood behind him _(don’t give up your back circle her you can’t circle her your back is exposed and you can’t fight back)_ and gently placed her hands on his shoulders, feeling the energy rumbling within him. “It’s okay, Crowley,” she whispered. “This is it, okay? This is the hardest part.” She gave his shoulders a little squeeze, and he relaxed ever so slightly under her touch. “I am going to push you through the ropes on either side of you, but I need your help, okay?” Anathema paused, making sure that he was truly hearing her. “When I push you, _I need you to throw yourself headfirst at the same time._ Like a catapult. And then _you are going to be upside down and you will stay that way._ Do you think you can do that?”

Crowley nodded, his mouth working soundlessly, and he was crying without tears. If it had been a public scene, say, at a dungeon, the audience would have left by now. Such crowds look for pretty, they look for sexy, they look for practiced flying waifs with good hair and even better lighting.

Not snarling, demonic pseudo therapy sessions.

“I can do it,” he sobbed, “I want to do it.”

“I’m going to push you,” said Anathema.

“Do it,” said Crowley.

It was happening.

Crowley dove, and he didn’t recognize the shriek that tore out of him, and he was sure he was going to bash his teeth into the floor but he did not, he trusted, he trusted the rope and he trusted his friend and he was going to be okay. And he was falling, he was falling but he had chosen it, he was Falling but it was _SAFE,_ he was in a safe place, and before he knew it he was inverted and still, and he was pathetic, and he was harmless, and he was proud and for a split-second he even felt brave because he’d had the _audacity_ to embrace those parts of himself and _he had even done it in front of Aziraphale._

Anthony just-a-J Crowley had let his guard down, yet once again the world still didn’t end.

Anathema sounded so distant, and she said, “Do you want to come down now?”

“Give me a second,” said Crowley. He was finally feeling some sense of calm wash over him.

“In that case,” said Anathema, “would you like me to undo your chest harness? That will put all the weight on your hips, and you’ll feel even more like you’re flying. But you’ll also feel even more vulnerable.”

“Do it,” he said, without hesitation.

“Wrap your legs around the rope,” Anathema instructed. She untied Crowley’s chest, and he gritted his teeth at first as all the rope strain redoubled on his lower half, which was still up in the air. “Drop your arms,” she advised.

Crowley did as he was told, and … his knuckles brushed across the rubber mat, and … oh, why did that singular act feel so good to him? He was flying, but the floor was right there, he had never had anything to fear at all, had he?

It could be safe to trust …

His anxiety poured down his arms like rain and seeped into the floor. “You can let me down now,” he said softly.

“Tuck your head,” said Anathema. He did, and he felt himself being lowered, and then his shoulders connected with the floor, and then his spine was unrolling, down, down, and he was like some exotic plant, and his roots were unfurling-extending-digging beneath him …

Anathema beckoned to Aziraphale, who rushed beside him and slid Crowley delicately onto his lap. Crowley’s eyes focused on Aziraphale’s face, and he smiled dreamily, still drunk on adrenaline and endorphins. “I fell,” he mumbled, “I fell, and nothing hurt.”

“Yes, dear,” murmured Aziraphale, leaning in to kiss Crowley’s forehead, “you fell, and more importantly, you landed.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> xx [siliconealien](http://siliconealien.tumblr.com)


	3. fire massage.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like it says in the fic summary, this series strives to spotlight less common kinks. That is not meant to imply that anything here is "out there" or bizarre, but I would like to write about things that I haven't seen much on this site.
> 
> You are welcome to comment requests! Ultimately I am only going to write about what I like, but who knows, maybe you'll inspire me, or at the very least I might be able to recommend someone else's work for you :)
> 
> There are educational aspects to these chapters, but it should go without saying that **reading fanfiction is no substitution for proper mentorship and training!** Please do not attempt fireplay based on the descriptions provided here!
> 
> Thanks for reading! xx

**pt. III - Aziraphale wants to experience fire massage, and Crowley wants to serve in spite of his fears.**

Crowley hated to tell his angel no.

So of course Aziraphale wanted the one big thing that he was terrified to do.

“Absolutely not,” said Crowley.

It was fascinating what the humans could imagine to do with their bodies, and it was thrilling to try some of that out. They even had somewhat of a kink mentor in Anathema (Aziraphale had been surprised to learn that she knew her way around a dungeon scene; Crowley had not been surprised at all). Madame Tracy was essentially retired, and she was not too keen to try to explain to Shadwell that it would be purely platonic for her to teach two fine-looking man-shaped beings who presented as ten years her junior (despite actually being more than a little older than her) fun new ways to get turned on. That said, she had also contributed to their education, tremendously pleased to have been able to pass down some engaging literature.

Crowley and Aziraphale had observed some uniquely interesting things with Anathema and some of the other patrons at the club of which she was a member. And one of those things, that had made Aziraphale curious, was fireplay.

Specifically, he wanted Crowley to give him a fire massage.

“My dear boy, I’m sure I don’t understand it,” said Aziraphale. “You’re out of Hell, I should think you know a thing or two about how to manipulate fire.”

“Well, that’s just it!” said Crowley, tone gravelly with frustration. “What if any fire I touch automatically catches a little hellfire? I wouldn’t even know if that’s the case, because shocking enough, _I’ve never tried to set an angel on fire before!”_

“But I don’t want you to use any demonic miracles,” said Aziraphale. “You’ve watched how the humans do, there’s no magic involved. It actually looks rather simple.”

Crowley turned away, teeth gritted in silence. When Aziraphale reached out and stroked his cheek, he turned to brush his lips over his palm. “Why would you want me to do that anyway?” Crowley grumbled.

Aziraphale smiled at the way Crowley was forced to soften under his touch. “Well, you’ve seen how relaxed the humans get when it’s being done to them,” said Aziraphale. “And quite frankly, it looks phenomenally …” Aziraphale seemed to be choking on a word, and Crowley wondered _if he was actually about to say “sexy” out loud._ Crowley’s infernal senses tingled with the desire rolling from Aziraphale in waves. _“Primal.”_

__

__

_“‘Primal,’_ you …” Crowley was stunned. Then, a wicked grin started to stretch across his features. “This isn’t something you’re willing to risk in _spite_ of me being from Hell,” he said, delighted by the twisted implications. “This is something you want, _from me, because_ I’m from Hell.”

Aziraphale blushed pretty as rose quartz. “Possibly,” he acknowledged.

“Look, angel,” said Crowley, “we can act out whatever demented Dan Brown fantasy you want. But you seem to be forgetting, I feel some kind of way about … you and fire.”

“Oh, gosh,” said Aziraphale, sincerely chastened. “I can be horribly insensitive at times, can’t I?”

_At times?_ thought Crowley, who lovingly (and wisely) kept his mouth shut at that.

“I promise,” Aziraphale reassured him, “I shan’t mention it again.”

Aziraphale didn’t bring it up again. But Crowley, being Crowley, naturally, wanted to do what the angel wanted. He decided to learn how to do this “fireplay” the human way, as safely as one could, and he would not tell Aziraphale he was learning, because he did not want to disappoint if in the end he became too panicked to perform on him.

Crowley had been secretly meeting with Anathema for about a month, when she said, “You’re a natural at this, Crowley. It really only takes a couple sessions to learn the basics, and you’ve had it down since day one.”

“I want to do it for him, I do, I could _smell_ how tempted he was to try it,” said Crowley, “but I’m still.” Crowley made a creaking sound, and something complicated happened with his face that Anathema translated to mean _I’m scared but please don’t make me say it._ “I’d deserve the worst if I hurt him,” he said, looking pained.

“Hmm,” said Anathema. “You trust him, right?”

“Of course I do, what kind of question is that?” Crowley had never not taken this for granted, not once, regardless of however many times Aziraphale might have betrayed it.

“Then trust him to tell you if something’s wrong,” said Anathema. “And same goes for you, too. If it all gets to be too much, because of the whole fire thing, just say your safeword.”

Crowley stared at her, from behind dark glasses. “I’m topping,” he said flatly.

“Yeah, no shit, I gathered that,” said Anathema. “That doesn’t mean your safety doesn’t matter, too.”

“I have a surprise for you,” Crowley told Aziraphale that night.

Aziraphale straightened up on the couch, positively glowing at the suggestion of a gift. “Is that right,” he said. “And what might that be?”

“It’s okay if you don’t want to,” said Crowley nervously. They were at home, and his sunglasses were off, so Aziraphale caught the tiny twitches around his eyes. “I mean, of course it’d be okay, why-wouldn’t-it-be-okay, why would I even say that? Like as if I’d ever make you do anything you didn’t want to do, I mean—”

“Crowley,” said Aziraphale patiently, “if you are quite finished.”

“Right, right,” said Crowley. He raced out of the room, and Aziraphale could hear him making a great deal of clamor in a closet space. When he returned, he was carrying a black leather backpack, and lugging two large folded-up items behind him: a massage table, and a smaller, regular table. He laid the backpack on the floor gently, and Aziraphale could hear something breakable tinkling inside. Aziraphale watched as Crowley unfolded the pieces of furniture and arranged them side by side. Then he picked up the backpack and slung it on the table, unzipping.

Aziraphale’s curiosity was getting the best of him. “Crowley?”

Crowley was rifling around in the backpack. He shot Aziraphale a visibly fanged grin, but said nothing. Crowley thought he might lose his nerve if he started talking, so he was trying to play it off as a choice to be coolly mysterious. Crowley pulled two white towels out of the backpack, spread one out in the middle of the table, and draped the other across the head of the massage table. Next, he plucked a mason jar out of the bag. He opened it, setting the glass jar to the immediate left of the towel on the table, and the lid upside down to the right of it. Then, he pulled out a bottle of isopropyl alcohol, 70%, which he put toward the back of the table, and a plain tealight, which he placed in the center of the lid like it was a tray. Crowley rummaged in the bag yet again, and pulled out a long-wand lighter, which he set beside the candle. Aziraphale’s eyes sparkled with wonder.

Crowley looked over the items. He took the bottle of rubbing alcohol and filled the mason jar halfway, then recapped the bottle and returned it to its far-back position. He was all wiry energy, hands fluttering to unnecessarily straighten things. He finally eyed Aziraphale meaningfully, reached into the bag one last time, and proudly produced two metal sticks, with polished handles of bloodwood, and white cotton heads like big puffy marshmallows. A pattern of scales was burned into the wood, a present from Anathema.

Aziraphale looked overjoyed, recognizing the tools for what they were. “Fire wands!”

Crowley trembled with the threat of impending anxiety, but the beaming smile he wore was genuine. “I thought, I mean, you said … If you still wanted, I learned,” Crowley babbled.

“Of course I still wanted!” said Aziraphale, touched. He stood up off the couch and walked around the massage table to wrap his arms about Crowley’s neck. Crowley set the wands on the table and slid his own arms around Aziraphale’s waist, right as Aziraphale was tipping his head up to nudge Crowley’s mouth open with a kiss. Crowley made a sweet little sound as they languidly tasted each other, loving hands traveling over chests and backs.

“You feel so good,” Crowley breathed against Aziraphale’s parted lips. “I want to make you feel good …”

“You always do,” said Aziraphale with a smile.

Crowley’s slender fingers found Aziraphale’s bowtie, rested on it questioningly. Aziraphale nodded, his forehead brushing against Crowley’s, and Crowley pulled one end of the bow from underneath, agonizingly slow, then untied the knot he found there and popped the top button that laid flush over Aziraphale’s throat. Aziraphale’s mouth quirked playfully when his collar loosened, and his fingers dropped and unbuttoned the waistcoat. Sliding his hands down around Aziraphale’s shoulders, Crowley started to help unbutton his shirt.

It was not their usual dynamic. Of course they played with roles, took turns, shook things up, but Crowley could not remember a time when he had stayed fully dressed while stripping Aziraphale nude. The reverse was often the case, which he loved, but he was finding that this excited him in a new way. Aziraphale kicked off his trousers, quickly bent to fold them somewhat and miracle his clothes someplace else.

Aziraphale stepped in closer to Crowley, enjoying the novel sensation of his naked skin rubbing on denim. The contrast was gorgeous, unblemished ivory riding shades of black. Crowley lifted Aziraphale’s chin and kissed him, and there was something feral in that kiss, something which tasted like being claimed, and Aziraphale responded to that with a hunger.

“Lie down?” Crowley murmured into Aziraphale’s cheek, and it was as much a request as it was an order. “On your stomach,” he said, after Aziraphale had climbed up on the massage table. “Inch down so your feet hang off the table.”

Aziraphale did as he was told, then stretched and got comfortable; the headspace for being pampered was not altogether alien to him. He crossed his arms in front of him so his forehead rested on them. Crowley circled the table. He took one of the wands, and he sensed that his fingers curled around it might have felt more claw-like than they had fifteen minutes ago. Crowley held the wand, unlit, and dragged the cotton end inch by inch down Aziraphale’s spine, making him shudder from the ghost of a touch. Then he dropped it by his side, and starting at the small of his back, scraped his nails up to the nape of his neck, where he grabbed a fistful of curls the color of snow during golden hour. He tugged, and Aziraphale moaned, and his face dropped right back down to his hands when Crowley released him.

Crowley sauntered back to his table. He plunked the wand into the jar, and watched idly as bubbles rose to the surface of the clear liquid and vanished. He lit the candle. Grasping the wand by its handle, he rolled the cotton in a fluid motion from left to right over the towel and hovered it on the infant flame.

The instant the fabric head touched that little birthday candle lick of light, the fire leapt onto the cotton and rapidly grew to the height of Crowley’s torso. He gave it a snappy shake away from the table and rolled the flaming ball over his palm. There was no magic here, it was the same thing any human would do to test the heat. A trick in the speed—like passing a hand through a steady candle flame.

He peered into the fire before him. The cotton was immersed in haint-pale blue, which bled out to a nebulous moonstone, molten gold, and finally finishing in a barely perceptible amber haze. It created the picture of a juncture, a neutral meeting ground of angel eyes and those of a venomous viper separated only by the scorching white of stars.

Crowley had feared he might panic when he saw the actual fire. He was distantly aware of his own surprise that the opposite was true: for the first time in a long time, as he examined its shifting tendrils reflected in his eyes, Crowley felt clearheaded and calm. This was _his_ fire, _he_ controlled it, no one else. He was entering a flow state of mind. It was a Temptation well done, it was a drive in the Bentley … Three things existed in the whole of the Universe, and those things were an angel, a demon, and a flame.

Crowley swept the fire down his palm again, but instead of allowing his hand to cool he brought it to cup Aziraphale’s shoulder. Aziraphale’s muscles contracted involuntarily at the unexpected touch, not even aware at first that the flaming heat pressing down on him was only Crowley’s hand. Crowley repeated that, holding heat in the palm of his hand, for the other shoulder.

Aziraphale sighed as Crowley worked his way down the angel’s back like this, treating the very bones of his corporation like so many baked river rocks. Just as Aziraphale gentled into that feeling and started to relax more, Crowley switched gears and rolled the actual flame head down Aziraphale’s back instead of his own hand, staying to one side of the spine. His hand always followed the fire, flattening on Aziraphale’s back and petting the path the wand had just taken.

“Oh,” Aziraphale exhaled with a shiver.

Crowley held the wand down behind him and leaned in close to Aziraphale’s ear. “You okay?” he whispered.

“More than okay,” Aziraphale said in a single breath. It was the vocal equivalent of a body slipping under in a hot tub, while the first vestiges of icy rain fell around it.

Crowley continued to paint fast strokes down either side of Aziraphale’s back and soothe each streak with his touch. He felt hypnotized by the fire, yet fully present and functioning. It reminded him of something from many millennia ago. Aziraphale was so warm, resplendent in his blissed-out pleasure. He had gone from flinching each time Crowley caught him off guard, to subtly following every caress with a catlike arch, and now this, doing no more than spreading hopelessly like a puddle over the table’s mattress. Crowley continued to splash fire and dip his fingers into wherever it had soaked, continuing the action down the backs of Aziraphale’s thighs and calves now, too.

The alcohol was nearly burned away, so Crowley shook the wand away from the table and blew it out completely. He dropped both wands into the jar and again watched for air bubbles to cease before withdrawing the unused tool out of the glass. The same left-to-right story, of jar, towel, candle, and it felt for Crowley now to be as mindless as breathing. Again, the fire burst into being like creation breathed into stars.

As Crowley worked, Aziraphale felt like rich gardening ground, and the heat of the flames was like nourishment seeping in the soil. Crowley had started tapping instead of painting, finding a light beat and playing it down Aziraphale’s back and legs. Aziraphale gasped; the sensation focalized to single points felt much different from the previous swiping method. And always, always, Crowley’s coldblooded hand swiftly tended to each sizzling spot.

Crowley came to the bottom of the massage table where Aziraphale’s feet lay exposed. He would not touch fire to skin there, opting to swirl the fire through the air around them so that they became almost uncomfortably hot but deliciously so. Aziraphale whined deliriously, barely audible as muffled by his arms. Crowley returned his attention to his back and started to alternate, between drags slower than before and harder thumps, _stroke-hit-stroke-hit_ … Aziraphale was in something surely better than any Heaven he had known. The feeling physically was not actually comparable to any other type of massage in his experience, and emotionally … well. His heart flooded with the knowledge that none of this had come to Crowley easily. But he hadn’t let that stop him.

He adored him so much.

_Take that sentence how you want. You’d be right either way._

Crowley put the fire out and added that wand to the jar, then went down on his knees before Aziraphale and took his face in both hands. “How do you feel?” he asked, voice devastatingly soft.

“Amazing,” Aziraphale mumbled.

Crowley continued to cup his chin, let his thumbs pass over that mouth, then kissed him tenderly. “That’s all that matters to me,” he said quietly. Aziraphale smiled dreamily, his eyes beginning to take focus. He opened his mouth to speak, and Crowley interrupted. “Please don’t make some joke about _‘playing with fire,’”_ Crowley teased, nipping Aziraphale’s lower lip.

Aziraphale lazily twined his fingers in Crowley’s crimson hair and pulled him in for a harder kiss. “My love, you know me all too well,” he purred.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> xx [siliconealien](http://siliconealien.tumblr.com)


	4. needles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for the length, this isn't nearly as bite-size as the other chapters. It's almost half the length of the other three chapters combined. There are two main reasons for that.
> 
> First of all, one of the challenges that I enjoy about this series is justifying my characterization. I have wanted chapter 4 to be about needles for a long time. So in writing such a specific fetish like that (and it is a fetish in this chapter, so fair warning that **this is the most sexual chapter yet),** I have to ask myself, _why feasibly would our favorite husbands even be doing such a thing?_
> 
> Secondly, anyone who knows me knows how self-indulgent writing about kink is for me, and Crowley is unabashedly my self-insert here lol. So the first part of this chapter is highly relevant to my own issues and angst, so of course I had a lot to say about it. And for that, I would like to dedicate this one to my Discord harem of messy masochistic bottoms who constantly remind me when I start to spiral out with dark thoughts about myself that they love me (and need people like me) just the way that I am <3
> 
> Anyway, **it's a chapter about a lot of needles and a little blood.** I really shouldn't need to explain the trigger warnings.
> 
> Enjoy!

**pt. IV - Crowley is ashamed of an interest he picked up in Hell, and Aziraphale helps him accept it.**

_1999_

Yes, he was the original Tempter, not a torturer by design, and earth’s field agent. And that was just fine by Crowley, because he hated having to be in Hell; and using his wits and his ability to fan desire typically suited him better than any brutality. Then again, Crowley had been around for six millennia, and there wasn’t much his job hadn’t required him to do.

It was unsurprising that Crowley had at times been … reprimanded, at his job. Perhaps more difficult to envision was Crowley on the opposite end of the whip, or a mace, or ratcheting a rack. But he was a creature of Hell, after all, one of the Fallen (it wasn’t the sort of thing one ought to forget—regardless of how utterly undemonic he may seem). 6,000 years in, it was inevitable that he occasionally be assigned to help out in another department.

Of course, demons had lousy management, and even worse morale.

Crowley wasn’t passionate about Hell’s cause, nor were any of his supervisors really smart enough to catch on when he was slacking off or bending the rules. And so, being that Crowley wasn’t incredibly keen on hurting anyone, and given that Crowley’s area of expertise was sniffing out ways that humans wanted to be seduced: unless one was a truly evil and deserving degenerate, getting tortured by Crowley was not so much torture as it was a good Saturday night.

_“Oi,”_ was the sort of thing he might say (and this is purely hypothetical, of course), sticking his head through the door of some damned soul’s cube in Hell. “Somebody around here smells like they don’t mind a little light thuddy impact too much,” as he manifested a red and black flogger in one hand, and tried to sound much cooler than he actually felt, “eh, is that coming from this cell?”

“Is this a trick?” the human would have asked, and her heavy wrist shackles absolutely did not remind him of anyone at all.

“How do you feel about a medium intensity double elk?”

She smiled shyly.

“Just do me a favor,” said Crowley, looking over his shoulder—“really play up the screams.”

And so it went, whenever he got called Down because Hastur’s corporation’s carpal tunnel came back or something. Hell had worse gigs to give, but it was never something he found particularly thrilling.

Until the American.1

Crowley entered the dark stone cell, and saw that the American man bound to the chair in the middle of the floor was not old or young, neither fat nor thin, but stocky, visibly strong yet thickly padded on top of the muscle. His curly hair must have been golden blonde at some point but showed the beginnings of turning white. Crowley gulped discreetly and tried not to think about how the man’s blue eyes twinkled.

Relief washed over Crowley when the man spoke and sounded nothing like the angel. Not only because of the accent, but because this many years before Not the End of the World, Aziraphale had never taken such a flirtatious tone with him (realizing the distinction, a slight sting bled into the relief’s edges he had been feeling). “Ohh,” said the American, smiling gratefully, “I’ve heard of you! The kinky ginger. The other cell was right, you _are_ nice to look at.”

Crowley crossed his arms and hunched gloomily. “Dunno what you’re talking about,” he snarled. “I’m a demon of Hell and I’m here to torture you.”

The man nodded sagely. “Got it,” he said, not disrespectfully. “I like role-play.”

Crowley let his head fall back, and the man correctly supposed that was done to make sure he knew that Crowley was rolling his eyes behind the dark sunglasses. “Okay, fine, yes, yes,” said Crowley, “but I’m not—_‘the kinky ginger,’_ this isn’t a, a _thing_ for me. Torturing just isn’t my scene, and before you say anything stupid this isn’t about me being _nice,_ either,” he tacked on quickly, “I just don’t see why I should have to be the one getting my hands dirty every time some Duke starts burning his sick leave.”

“Huh,” said the man with a wrinkle of his brow, “you’d think a Duke wouldn’t have to be down here torturing people.”

Crowley opened his mouth to snark that what would a human know about the hierarchy of Hell, but the sweetly familiar expression on the man’s face stopped him. “Yeah, well,” he grumbled instead, thinking of Hastur, “some of us get more out of it than others.”

“All right, well,” said the man, “the last thing I want to do is piss off the demon about to punish me, so I’ll can it.”

“Well,” Crowley said with a sigh, “you’ve heard the drill then. Pick your poison, scream your bloody head off, make me look bad for the lower-downs.”

The man _hmm_’ed low in his throat, then disarmed Crowley by the sharpness of his grin. “Do you like needles?”

That was new. Crowley raised an eyebrow. “Needles,” he repeated flatly. He’d seen stranger things, of course. Humans were always doing interesting things to their bodies, it was just that he had never anticipated having to stick needles into anyone himself. Other sharp objects, like knives, that would have thrown him off less, because he had handled knives throughout various events in history.

“Needle play,” the man agreed. “Not only is it fun, but it would really make it look like you were doing your job, right?”

Crowley hesitated. The man had a great point (no pun intended). Beelzebub couldn’t exactly complain if they dropped by and witnessed Crowley using a human for a pincushion. They would think Crowley was taking a torturing assignment seriously for a change, getting creative with it, even. Putting that imagination to Hell’s advantage.

After a moment’s thought, Crowley reached out to brush against the man’s memories. Nothing invasive, just peering in those pockets where relevant life experiences and information were stored, learning what he could on the fly about this _needle play._ Typically by this time a human mind would instinctively attempt to throw a wall up, no more understanding of what it was feeling than a roly-poly bug that curls in on itself when you nudge it with a pencil. But the man’s mind remained as though he knew Crowley was probing him and he was straining to submissively hold himself open in reply, and Crowley tried not to think about how much he liked the feeling of power that gave him.

He accidentally heard the man’s name. He immediately chose to forget it.

“I remind you of someone,” the man said quietly, after Crowley metaphysically pulled away.

Crowley was silent, his face betraying nothing. He had not meant to give the man anything, but these things happened sometimes.

“It’s all right,” the man offered. “I have— I had one of those, too.” There was a brief pause, and then the man changed the subject with a dark chuckle: “Looks like you liked what you saw.” He nodded to Crowley’s right.

Crowley looked to that side and did a double take. He had somehow missed manifesting an entire table covered with fine-gauge hypodermic needles with different color hubs. (Idly, in the back of his mind, Crowley noted that he had foregone the sterile packaging and disinfectants he saw in the man’s memories, probably because, well, the guy was technically dead.)

“What do I do now?” Crowley was shocked to hear himself say, and he hated both the question and how unsure his tone was. He felt strange. This felt unnervingly intimate.

The man’s cheeks colored, and his eyes darted first to the floor and then back at Crowley’s face. “Whatever you want,” he said, a small waver in his voice.

And Crowley played, with the knowledge he now had.

Later—and it could have been hours, or it could have been days, such was time in Hell—as Crowley panted and removed every single needle under the man’s flesh the human way, not wanting to miss a single slide of metal or drop of blood, as Crowley ignored the way his cock _strained_ against the front of his jeans, the man huffed out a playful laugh and said, “Man, I wish I’d met you on earth in one of the clubs while I was still alive.” He wiggled in his chair delightedly. “Should have just gone online and searched for demons,” he joked. “Of course, you would like this.”

Crowley stopped, his hand hovering over a line of needles embedded in the man’s thighs. Bent down, he ventured the slightest glimpse of eye contact over his lenses. “And why’s that?”

The man’s voice was kind, and that made it worse. “Well, you know,” he said, “demons. You’re sadists, right? That’s what you were made to do.”

Crowley whipped up and stepped behind the man so he wouldn’t see how the color drained from his face. He snapped his fingers, disappearing the rest of the needles from the man’s body and hitching a ride on the very crackling traveling energy of Hell back to his pied-à-terre there.

**Why had he gotten off on that so much?** That had never happened with any of the other fake tortures. Crowley had gotten _hard_ digging in and out of a man’s skin for hours and smelling the blood that came, a man who had been tied down and unable to defend himself, _a man who looked like the angel._

_You know why,_ hissed his own self-loathing, _you’re a demon. You were_ made _to do that sort of thing, you were made to spread pain and damage._

Another voice, and this one was Aziraphale in his imagination: _I’m disappointed in you, Crowley. I know you can’t help being a demon, but I was foolish enough to believe you weren’t as sick as all the rest of them._

_Really, Crowley? A sadist? A common torturer?_

No, Crowley thought. This would go on a shelf.

He would never let himself do anything like that again, and nobody would ever have to know.

_Present Day_

It’s interesting how one can judge oneself, whilst never realizing that one does not apply the same standard of shame to those around him.

Crowley liked watching the people at the dungeon. Although his view of humanity was understandably jaded, it was the duality of his nature that he was also secretly fond of them from afar. He had a soft spot for kids, and that’s all they really were at the end of the day, right? Overgrown dumb children that barely made it out of the toddlerhood which was a single century. Most of them meant well, and you couldn’t completely fault those ones for their lack of wisdom.

It was neat to see how clever they were in developing ways to inflict pain and pleasure, and it was (he hated to use the word, even privately, but) sweet how enthusiastically they consented to trying them out on each other. But they were only human, and that meant that the games they played held no intrinsically cruel connotations.

She had not made them for the sole purpose of being wicked.

Crowley had curiously watched humans use bullwhips to tear each other’s backs to shreds, or suspend one another with barbed wire, and that was all well and good, yet he could simultaneously work himself up in a twist over giving a _sensual_ fire massage. Oh, he knew he liked it because the angel did, but he never shared that for him there was something else to it as well. He liked the quiet danger that something could go wrong, and the illusion that Aziraphale, so very trusting, had been defenseless under him (obviously untrue, but the brain chemicals of this corporation seemed more than willing to tell him otherwise).

It had felt as though he could hurt Aziraphale, and Crowley didn’t care to examine how much that thought aroused him.

Decades had passed since, but that was barely a nap to Crowley, plus some things just stuck with you. He thought about the dead and damned American from time to time. That wasn’t exactly true: he thought about that interaction (it was a torture session, he told himself, purely work-related and not some kind of sexual thing; certainly not the hellish equivalent of meeting an attractive stranger for a motel tryst), and in spite of the guilt it caused, the angel would creep into mind.

Crowley couldn’t tell you _why_ needles, as opposed to, say, razor blades, or scalpels. He had always been something of an artist, having helped build nebulae dripping in colors that hadn’t even been invented yet. Perhaps that was a part of it, how every gauge was identified by a different color, allowing him to meticulously create designs which were a tangible extension of his own fingertips. And the canvas was the very meat of a man willing to offer his body to Crowley for such an end.

There hadn’t been a lot of blood (even if the man’s veins had still physically existed to contain it, most needle play doesn’t produce much), but still, it had been there in some unearthly form, and Crowley smelled it, and lusted, and no one had ever been sent to bleed for Crowley like Someone had once bled for humans, but just once, only twenty-some years ago—one human had begged for the opportunity to bleed for Crowley.

Crowley was thinking about the angel. He was thinking about power. And he was thinking about needles.

And he was jacking off furiously.

It wasn’t an uncommon masturbatory fantasy for Crowley, but he should have known where it was bound to end him up, his luck being what it was.

“Oh, fuck, yes, fuck, ye— _FUCK,”_ he yelped, dropping his throbbing dick before he could finish and sitting up in the throne desk chair like a shot. He had felt Aziraphale, breathed his cool scent not unlike a campfire that had been put out by the rain before he saw him standing in his apartment, but he had been too caught up in envisioning to think anything of it.

Aziraphale beamed. “Oh, darling,” he cooed, “it would appear I’m right on time.” His expression dropped a fraction when he noticed the look of horror on Crowley’s face, and then he saw what was laid out all over the red marble desk.

Crowley leapt halfway across the room like lightning, desperately tugging up his jeans.

_He had made needles,_ so many of them, _needles,_ like some newly formed idiot imp that couldn’t control its own miracles, he’d been right about to cum and he made fucking _needles._

“Crowley?” Aziraphale raised a placating hand and took a step toward him. Crowley stared down at the floor, but allowed Aziraphale to step in to him and draw him closer with his hands on his waist.

“M’sorry,” said Crowley, giving a little shake.

Aziraphale had decided to pretend that the question about the state of Crowley’s desk didn’t exist at the moment. He ran a hand through Crowley’s hair. “Whyever would you think that you owe me an apology? Because I walked in on you while you were attending to the needs of your body in your own home?”

Crowley acknowledged his desk with a flailing gesture and a sort of low throaty croaking sound.

“Ah, yes, I see your desk is covered in needles,” said Aziraphale, in the same tone of voice one might use to say, _I see you changed the curtains in here._ “Would you care to sit on the bed with me and talk about it?”

Crowley half-shrugged, but allowed Aziraphale to lead him through the rooms to where they could comfortably sit together. Crowley gave him a weak smile and a kiss on the cheek before saying, “I’m always happy you’re here, you know.”

“I know that, dear,” said Aziraphale, turning to nuzzle noses. “I merely took you by surprise.”

Already some of Crowley’s tension had melted away. He tilted in to tenderly catch Aziraphale’s mouth with parted lips, before drawing back up to sit with him.

They enjoyed the quiet for a spell. “Did you _want_ to talk about it?” Aziraphale asked mildly.

Crowley’s mouth jerked. “Right,” he said, “you should know.” He paused. “I like needles,” he said, dragging the words out slowly. “I like piercing people with them, well—it only ever really happened with one person. It happened in Hell.” He winced at his own confession. “I wasn’t even doing anything with them just now, I was just close, and, well … needles.”

Aziraphale nodded, and Crowley’s heart skipped a beat without his permission at how openly fascinated and nonjudgmental his face was. “Why didn’t you want me to know?” Aziraphale asked. He wasn’t accusing, just interested.

Crowley sighed. “It’s like … it’s bad enough to be a demon, yeah? Without getting off on hurting people on top of it. And it’s something from before, it’s from Hell, that isn’t my life anymore, I’m not—”

Crowley shut up when Aziraphale put his hand up to barely graze Crowley’s jaw, letting himself be pulled into Crowley’s orbit to kiss him deeply. Crowley groaned low as Aziraphale licked in to feel Crowley’s inhumanly sharp teeth. “You _are_ a demon, my dear,” Aziraphale whispered into his mouth. “You _are_ from Hell. And apparently, something about the idea of piercing through flesh titillates you.”

There were no tears to be seen in Crowley’s eyes, but a ragged whimper of hurt escaped his lips.

“And I _love_ all those things about you, because I love _everything_ about you,” Aziraphale pressed on. “You are _my_ darling demon, my serpentine sadist”—Crowley let out a little laugh at that—_“and I wouldn’t change a damned thing.”_

“You’re amazing,” was all Crowley could manage, cracked words. He pushed back against Aziraphale’s kiss, reaching up to grip fistfuls of flaxen hair fiercely. Aziraphale wound his arm around to palm the front of Crowley’s jeans, and he sighed wistfully at the rock-hardness he discovered there.

“Would you like to try?” Aziraphale breathed, barely audible.

“What?” Crowley gasped, his hips moving to grind himself on Aziraphale’s hand.

“Would you want to pierce me?” Aziraphale asked. “Play with my very skin—leave a language of pinprick bruises that say ‘yours’—let me bleed for you?”

_“Fuck,”_ Crowley growled on Aziraphale’s lips.

“Is that a yes?”

_“Let me,”_ Crowley choked out, and it sounded like a prayer.

_“Please,”_ said Aziraphale in reply.

Crowley clambered up onto his knees on the bed, mouth never ceasing to hungrily claim Aziraphale’s, while Crowley removed his bowtie and started unbuttoning his clothes as fast as he could. Aziraphale moaned, breaking the contact long enough to lean forward and nip and suck along Crowley’s neck as he worked his way out of the sleeves of his button-up behind his back. Aziraphale struggled to wiggle out of his trousers, and Crowley used that distraction to shove Aziraphale into the mattress and bite his upper chest.

When Aziraphale arched up under Crowley’s hips to try to kick his trousers off the rest of the way, Crowley reached between them and helped whip them onto the floor (and if a minor miracle found them folded and safely placed, that was something neither of them even needed to think to do anymore). “I love you so much,” Crowley hissed, “you know that? You’re so good to me …”

“You deserve it,” Aziraphale said adoringly.

Crowley buried his face under Aziraphale’s arm, immersing himself in the scent while making a broken sound. When he pushed himself up, his hands on either side of Aziraphale’s neck, a sense of serenity washed over them, and they gazed into each other’s eyes.

Crowley kissed Aziraphale’s cheeks. “I don’t deserve you,” he said.

“That’s not up to you,” Aziraphale countered. “Only I have the right to decide who deserves me.”

Crowley kissed Aziraphale so carefully that each one’s lips barely ghosted on the other’s.

Crowley sat back. “Would you turn on your stomach for me?” he asked, the words somehow a plea and an order, and Aziraphale smiled as he twisted around so that Crowley was straddling his thighs right beneath his ass.

(No, he didn’t miracle plastic onto the bed. Why wouldn’t he want to know that the angel’s blood had been there?)

He kneaded Aziraphale’s strong shoulders, then tugged claws down in stripes over his upper back to elicit gasps from the angel. Then, again gentle on his soft waist, just rubbing circles into the ivory expanses of skin with the balls of his hands.

So much skin. So unmarked.

Crowley raised up his hand, and when he opened it he held a capped hypodermic needle with a blue base, not even thirty millimeters long. The cap amused him; as immortal beings, they were not taking any of the sterilization precautions that humans must take when they play with sharps, yet his subconscious had gone and manifested a cap. He didn’t mind, he liked the feel of the opening ritual of snapping it off.

Upon exposing the needle to the air, he held it up to the light to examine the stainless steel. He loved the cold grey metal, he loved the shape of the needle: hollow with a point to allow for blood or other fluid to pass through. He knew from the memories he had visited decades ago that this was a 23 gauge needle. Needles for play piercing were typically (but not always) thinner than regular piercing needles, but they were also thick enough that you could theoretically stuff them with acupuncture needles. It was just about the finest gauge with which he could start on skin as thick as the back.

Crowley tracked his eyes over Aziraphale’s perfect body. “Are you sure about this?” he asked.

“My dear, I am hardly so soft as to need to be asked over and over,” Aziraphale huffed. Then, right before Crowley could work up the nerve to begin, Aziraphale said, “I turned it down, by the way.”

Crowley straightened back up. “What?” he asked.

“My angelic pain tolerance,” Aziraphale proclaimed proudly.

“What?” Crowley repeated, said more dramatically this time.

“It will feel more human,” Aziraphale said. “I’ll feel it more.”

“No, no,” said Crowley, “you crank that back up. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Yes, you do,” Aziraphale said seriously, without missing a beat.

Crowley froze.

“You said this hurts,” Aziraphale said, but his tone was soft. “That was one of the reasons you gave me for why you didn’t want to tell me that you thought about it. If you wanted to do something like this for whatever reason and not inflict pain in doing it, you could make it so. _You want it to hurt.”_ He paused. “And that’s fine, my darling,” he said, “because I’m asking you to do this with me. _You are permitted._ And besides,” he added cheekily, “I want to know what it feels like, too.”

“Doesn’t it disgust you,” said Crowley, and it didn’t sound like a question. “Aren’t you disgusted that I would get turned on by that.”

“Not at all,” Aziraphale whispered.

Crowley wondered if it was possible to still be falling in love with someone a little more each day for 6,000 years.

Aziraphale was face down, but Crowley could hear the smile in his voice. “Now get on with it,” he said.

Crowley knelt in close and stroked a spot on Aziraphale’s left upper back. He decided to pierce from left to right, top to bottom, because he didn’t feel like sticking himself as he worked. Holding the needle near parallel to the angel’s back, Crowley took a pinch of pale skin and snagged one side of it on the needle’s tip. Up so close it was easy to see how the needle didn’t actually pierce the flesh immediately, rather, there was a split-second where it pushed along a tiny triangle of skin before it breached the surface. And noticing that one odd detail, that was enough to transform Crowley’s mental state into a sea of calm.

Aziraphale hadn’t flinched. “How was that?” Crowley asked gently.

“I’m not quite sure how to describe it,” said Aziraphale, already sounding a bit dreamy. “It didn’t _not_ hurt. But I don’t not like it, either.”

“Should I stop?” Crowley asked.

“No,” said Aziraphale, “keep going.”

Crowley hummed. He manifested a second 23 gauge needle, uncapped it, and inserted it into the corresponding spot on the right side of Aziraphale’s back, going in the opposite direction to start a symmetrical design. This time Crowley was more aware of the distinct pop of skin upon the exit of the needle, and Crowley inhaled sharply at whatever that did to him.

“Still good?”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale said warningly, “don’t you dare ask me again how I’m doing. How am I supposed to relax when you keep asking me that? If I need to stop, I’ll tell you.”

Crowley snorted. “Fine, fine,” he said.

Almost an hour must have passed before either of them spoke again, and it was astonishing how peaceful the space around them had become. Crowley was lost in concentration, Aziraphale in sensation. Finally, Aziraphale spoke, his voice hazy: “Can you go deeper?”

Crowley’s eyebrows arched in shock. “You want me to pierce you deeper?” Crowley had rocked back on his heels so that his groin was nowhere near Aziraphale’s ass. (Crowley had been too invested in what he was doing to be thinking about sex, but the instant he heard Aziraphale ask for more pain his hard-on had returned with a vengeance. He feared that if Aziraphale felt it, then he might go along with something he didn’t want to do just to make Crowley happy.)

“Mm,” Aziraphale murmured sleepily into his arms. “Can’t go much longer. But want to try for the last of it.”

_He’s practically stoned on this,_ Crowley thought in amazement. Crowley had expected Aziraphale to be willing to tolerate a good amount of this; never in his wildest dreams had he expected him to flat-out love it. He stroked Aziraphale’s sides soothingly. “How about two more,” he said. “They’ll be like the centerpiece. Two heavier needles and I’ll go just a hair deeper and then I want to take care of you.”

Aziraphale nodded. He laid the side of his head on his arms, and Crowley saw that he was smiling with his eyes shut, even as he shook a little. He’d probably get clammy soon if Crowley went for much more. This was a good place to start wrapping it up.

Crowley trembled as he summoned a 20 gauge hypodermic needle with a yellow hub. As he pierced a safe enough degree deeper, a fine stream of gold trickled down Aziraphale’s spine and pooled in the small of his back. It was the consistency of liquid mercury, and when Crowley smelled it on his tongue, he wondered if he was going to pass out with Lust. “Angel,” he said, “you’re bleeding.”

“S’quite all right,” said Aziraphale. “I want the last one.”

Crowley swallowed. “All right, angel,” he said tenderly, eyes soft with devotion. “I want to give it to you.” He uncapped the final 20 gauge and bit his lip as he speared a willing pinch of flesh, releasing another rivulet of metallic gold blood. “You look incredible,” Crowley spoke reverently. “You look beautiful as always.”

Aziraphale’s smile widened. “I want to see it,” he said.

“Okay, look,” said Crowley, already putting his hands on Aziraphale’s shoulders in case he tried to sit up too quickly and likely get dizzy, “I’m going to help you down, okay? And after I show you, I’m going to take them out and get you cleaned up, and as far as I’m concerned we can spend the next 24 hours under a nest of blankets while I feed you chocolate.”

“Sounds like I did rather well for my first time then,” Aziraphale chuckled, accepting Crowley’s assistance to the vanity.

“You did … phenomenal, you’re perfect, you never cease to impress me,” Crowley babbled into Aziraphale’s neck, peppering it with grateful kisses. Crowley gave Aziraphale a hand mirror from the vanity and turned him so that his back was to the larger mirror. Aziraphale gasped.

“Crowley,” he said in a rush, “that is beautiful.” Aziraphale hadn’t even fully realized that Crowley was making anything while he’d been piercing him, so he was entirely taken aback by the flawlessly symmetrical wings spiraling over his body.

Crowley managed to look at once both embarrassed and preening. “It’s all in the canvas.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1 Of course Crowley had tortured plenty of Americans during his existence. Depending on where they were from in the States, all he had to do was imagine a driving scenario for them and put them in a roundabout. But he only ever thought of one as _The_ American.
> 
> xx [siliconealien](http://siliconealien.tumblr.com)


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